Ozuna Caught “In Between”

Normally a 5-2 home stand would have the St. Louis Cardinals in a good mood, but as they open a road trip in San Diego tonight they are trying to erase the disappointment of two consecutive losses to Minnesota in which they totaled only one run and six hits.

“There’s no frustration,” said Marcell Ozuna, who leads the team with 19 RBIs but went 0-6 against the Twins.

“It’s like sometimes when we are playing you get a good pitch to hit, then you saw from the release point it’s going to be a ball and then the umpire makes a mistake and calls it a strike,” he explained. “You’re like why’d I have to swing? Right now, I feel like I’m off or are they off? I don’t know. It’s like in between.”

Perhaps a result of that feeling, Ozuna has struck out seven times in his last four games. He also made an uncharacteristic error in left field. It was one of three in Tuesday’s game for the Cardinals and the second of the season for Ozuna. He made only five all of last year en route to winning a Gold Glove.

“I’m going to fix that,” said Ozuna of that in between feeling. “My approach, don’t let them bother me and I’m not going to let it bother me.”

Traditionally, May has been good for Ozuna, who has his best splits of hitting .309, 24 home runs, and 76 RBIs in the month over his career.

REYES REHAB START

–Pitcher Alex Reyes made his first rehab assignment start last night, throwing 3.1 innings for Palm Beach (A+) in their 10-9 loss to Jupiter. Reyes allowed four hits, no runs, and had a walk with six strikeouts. He threw 67 pitches, 43 for strikes.

Reyes is expected to continue with rehab starts, eventually making his way to Memphis (AAA), before he is eligible to come off the Cardinals disabled list on May 28th.